reply to post by ImaFungi
You're asking me opinion on the what, how, and why of the universe? My paradigm in a nutshell? Yikes.
If it's alright, I'll start with the latter question of my thoughts on an afterlife and work my way up to the former.
I would have to say that my response would very much depend upon in which of the many hypothesized “here-afters” I was to find myself. For
instance, if I found myself in the place I was raised to believe all sinners go, I would most likely start with a lengthy conjunct of expletives,
followed by a brief thought of, “Glad I loved my life while I had it” and then I would commence with the 'wailing and gnashing of teeth'. On the
other hand.....
He wore a glove. If I found myself in a Nirvana without any real sense of purpose but with a heightened sense of being (due to being part of
the collective conscious), I would probably think, “Glad I loved my life while I had it”, before not caring about much of anything for the rest of
eternity.
Alternatively, if I found that I was an energy entity, unrestricted by dimension and governed by a new set of physics, and had the ultimate
power to control my eternal destiny; to do and go as I please, I hope I would think, “Glad I loved my life while I had it” and go forward learning
and growing.
You see, you are asking me what my response would be to the unknown. No one can really tell me what to expect so I can't really say what my
response would be although, it is fun to postulate. There isn't much reason to spend an inordinate amount of time in debate of the particulars
because anything beyond-I'm dead-is just a guess.
But for the tough questions....
About What:
What is this universe all about? Hmmm.....cheese? No? Back to the drawing board!
Personally, I think the universe, the earth, and everything on it are spectacularly improbable. I know a lot of my colleges seem to think that due to
the vast amount of stars and planets that surely there must be other life out there and though I would not be so hubristic as to emphatically say that
there isn't; I must express that I think that it is incredibly understated to say, that what we are and what we have is extraordinarily rare. If I
were to place any wager on faith alone, having no proof to my credit, I would bet that we are alone. It would be a small wager, but a wager
none-the-less. I'm sure I will incite impugnation with that last claim.
Scarcity in tow, I still have to lean toward it being a natural occurrence. I think it's a kick to the ole hoo-ha-ha of mother nature to implicate
any outside help for what we enjoy everyday. It demeans the power of humanity. It castrates us and makes us impotent. At least the popular God of
Christendom does. And as I mentioned I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that this phantasmagoria is in the slightest the result of invisible
people.
Have you ever seen these people who win multiple millions of dollars say, ten years down the road? You're sitting there asking yourself how the
bloody hell these buffoons could have possibly squandered all that money. Somehow they manage it, though. What do you do with 50 million bucks? I
dunno. This existence is the cosmic equivalent. Don't pee it all away.
I see humanity as a bunch of kids sitting in the back of Mom and Dad's Buick on a 85 degree day making the last leg of the trip to Disney Land.
Everyone is tired and sweat and the only thing the kids keep asking is, “Are we there yet?” It's all about our individual and collective journey.
About How:
How did we get here? Why that's just an elaboration on my last point, really. The problem is though, I don't really care. I wish that we could all
not care for a thousand years or so. It would do us some good to take a vacation from the 'big picture' for a bit. I'm not saying that I think we
should all stop being human; to stop our never ending search for the answers, for knowledge, for understanding. What I am saying, is that I think we
should just ask smaller questions. Like the ones we're asking at places like CERN or even the little things the tin cans we're shooting off into
space make us ask. The jumping to conclusions about the answer has brought us nothing but grief for far too long.
Nothing(Something + X) x Infinity + (Y – us) = The answer
Why stand on the right of that equation? We don't even know what the parenthetic variables are. Since no one is handing us the answer we should
probably figure that stuff out first. No sense getting all bunged up. So many people seem to be so staunchly convicted that they have it though. Fun
little trait of ours. It's paltry and pejorative at best to over indulge in that line of thinking. I stopped caring how I got here years ago. All
that matters is that I'm here now.
About Shmidt:
Weird movie.